service level agreement is the responsibility of the stores people, but ultimately top management is accountable. Maintenance personnel are consulted. The RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult, and Inform) chart seen in Table 4-1 shows who should be making decisions, who is ultimately accountable for the decisions, who you go to for advice, and who has to be kept in the loop. The RACI chart can frequently untangle the misalignment of accountabilities. Table 4-2 provides a guide to the RACI chart. In this example, we are defining generic roles. You may choose to designate specific jobs or titles such as Plant Manager instead of Top Management
Table 4-1: RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Inform
| Responsible | Accountable | Consult | Inform | |
| Service level agreement | S | T | M | O |
| Deciding stock levels | M | S | O | |
| Which parts stocked | M | S | E |
Table 4-2: Roles for the RACI Chart
| T | Top management |
| F | Finance |
| S | Storeroom leadership |
| M | Maintenance leadership |
| O | Operations/ Production leadership |
| E | Engineering |
COMMON COMMENTS ABOUT GOOD AND BAD STOREROOMS
Table 3-3 summarizes a lot of comments that help you summarize the strengths and weaknesses of your storeroom. How many of these comments can you circle?
Did you know that the most common cause of interrupted maintenance work is no parts? Studies indicate that parts are the cause of up to 40% of lost tool time. These parts include those that are:
• Not identified ahead of time
• Not in stock, but should be
Table 4-3: How Many Can You Circle?
| Good Storeroom | Bad Storeroom |
| 1. Don’t run out of critical items! | 1. Stock-outs on critical parts when they are needed. |
| 2. Adequate storage with limited access. | 2. Parts not bought when the system says to buy them. |
| 3. Storeroom is kept clean and neat — one item per bin. | 3. Inventory for units no longer in service. |
| 4. Well-established and well-understood procedures for getting, returning, and accounting for maintenance materials. | 4. Inventory on shelf for one year or more. |
| 5. Craftspeople can identify and obtain parts without supervision’s authorization. | 5. Inventory cannot be reconciled. |
| 6. Little hoarding of parts by craftspeople. | 6. Parts can be added to or taken from inventory without proper paperwork or computer entry. |
| 7. Quick and well-defined withdrawal procedures even after stores hours (where storeroom is not open as many hours as maintenance works). | 7. Slow parts window. |
| 8. Requirement that all parts removed are recorded on work orders or an equivalent document. | 8. Hoarding of parts by craftspeople. |
| 9. All parts must be received, priced, and physically checked, counted, and signed for. | 9. Inflexible and hard-to-use computer system for inquiry and research. |
| 10. Periodically and randomly sample the waiting time at the counter for parts — work to reduce it. | 10. Purchase orders issued after item was received. |
| 11. All parts are assigned locations. | 11. Items are routinely purchased with petty cash on a rush basis. |
| 12. Periodic physical inventories are taken to verify quantity and location. | 12. Little knowledge of location, inventory level, usage. |
| 13. Some means for recording usage, price history, where used, and substitutions. | 13. No established min/max, reorder points, EOQs. |
| 14. Periodically shop for parts and evaluate vendors. | 14. No competitive bids or sweetheart deals with certain vendors (not partnerships). |
| 15. Nothing gets added to stock without stores team approval. | 15. Parts purchased but never used, no accountability of parts used. |
| 16. Periodically review applications and specifications of parts. | 16. No attempt to help craftspeople by pre-kitting work. |
| 17. Periodically review part usage and lead time to adjust min/max and economical order quantity (EOQ). | 17. No proper storage; unlimited access to parts room. |
| 18. If you don’t use it, don’t stock it. | 18. No physical inventory taken. |
| 19. Divide parts into classes for different treatment. | 19. Excessive hoarding of parts by mechanics outside of the parts room. |
| 20. Be sure new assets have parts requirements developed before they are needed. | 20. No knowledge of the current value of the inventory. |
| 21. No field re-engineering (without documentation). | 21. No analysis of the current value of the inventory. |
| 22. Parts for retired assets are reviewed for use elsewhere or disposed. | 22. Tough to find parts by descriptions or by where used. |
| 23. Be sure broken, bad, or ruined parts are disposed of promptly. | 23. Different reference numbers in different storerooms. |
| 24. Have an area for incoming and outgoing rebuildables. | 24. No knowledge of quantity on hand at the moment. |
| 25. Parts for PM and other routine jobs are entered on a bill of materials and pulled together as a kit. | 25. Multiple vendors make it hard to keep track of cost. |
| 26. Job material requirements are transmitted to the storeroom in advance of the job (by the planner or supervisor) when the job is firmly slotted to begin. | 26. Constant calls to vendors for emergency drop-offs. |
| 27. Don’t run out of toilet paper! | 27. Field re-engineering changes parts needed without changing bill of materials. |
| 28. Bad relationships among stores, maintenance, and purchasing. | |
| Bonus Symptoms: | |
| 29. Craftspeople rely on supervisors to get them materials. | |
| 30. Craftspeople rely on planners to get materials. | |
| 31.Craftspeople rely on superintendents to get them materials. |
• In stock, but can’t be found
• In stock but misidentified
• Not in stock and shouldn’t be, but no one knew that
Findings From Some Experts
The authors of Production Spare Parts (Moncrief et al.) list their conclusions from 25 years advising maintenance stockrooms in a variety of industries. Although these conclusions are not “truths,” they are items to watch for.
• 80–90% of the SKUs in the warehouse are rarely used.
• 40–45% of the SKUs have overstock.
• Only 50% of the overstocks will be used up within four years if they are not reordered.
• 40% of the overstocks are first-time buys.
• About 70% of initial buys are high, 10% are low, and 20% are okay.
• Lower cost items are ten times more likely to be overstocked.
• Items with longer lead times are more likely to be understocked.
• Vendor partnering can reduce stock levels by 20–30%
• Pareto analysis works great with inventories.
• Sharing spares with other plants can reduce stock by 20–35%.
• Shorter lead times can reduce stock by 20–30%.
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